Sunday, November 6, 2011

The magazine of the Swedish-speaking Martha orginization also wanted to interview Kaisa about her work and adventures on the bike.
And what is the Martha organization, you ask? Well, it's an organisation that provides education and advisory service in matters related to home, family and society. Key words in all their activities are quality of life, welfare and sustainable development. Sounds like just the kind of people who could get into bike travel...

We can only imagine what the Russian men driving past us wearing their leather jackets, decorated jeans and shiny shoes thought of Leka when seeing him dressed in his blue cow outfit.

But we do know for a fact that it's extremely uncommon for grown men to wear shorts in the East. So Leka can take pride in the fact that he probably managed to shock the locals both with his cycling wear as well as his casual clothing. Not a small feat!

On the way to the Norwegian border we were approached by these two guys who had driven their Jeep to Russia from the Czech Republic. They were hoping to find bumpy gravel roads to get some four wheel drive action and asked if they could take a peek at our map. They did have a map of they own, too, but the fact that it had the entire Finland plus some parts of Russia on one A4 page suggested that it may have not contained all the necessary details for conquering smaller roads... We located the road they were looking for but were left wondering if they'd actually be allowed to drive there, as most of the areas West of Murmansk are controlled by the army.

Monday, August 22, 2011

So we made it back home safe and sound. Now, a few days into recuperating it is time to dig into the archives, sharing with you pictures and tales that might not have made the front page for one reason or another during the journey itself.

We will keep posting in this blog for a while longer, trying also to gather tips and tricks for cycling in Russia. So don't leave just yet.

In one of history's most famous speeches Winston Churchill promised his people only blood, sweat, toil and tears. Some seventy years later Taina faces these very promises. This urban lady has been battered and bruised, in what can only be viewed as a mandatory initiation ritual to outdoor life.

From day one Taina suffered as our group's magnet for misfortune. She drove off the road, got badly bruised, went through not one, but three flat tires (the combined number of flats for the rest of the group was one), and had her bike break down during an especially harsh leg. And scored a few more or less controlled touchdowns.

Yet despite all misfortune, she miraculously arose to face each days worth of troubles and heroically crossed the finish line with a smile on her face. As can be seen here.

During our journey we camped out probably around two thirds of the journey. Generally we slept right by the road, next to a bridge or by some lake adjacent to the road.

This was one thing we were most warned about when crossing over to Russia. Yet, thanks to either our extraordinary luck, or the fact that the fears people inhibit are mostly exaggerations, we survived without a scratch. No one even remotely bothered us. If you don't count a few guys asking for fishing tips as that. We don't.

In fact, there was no time that any of us would have felt threatened or uncomfortable. At least not by the presence of strangers that is. Cold nights – well, that's a different story.

Also worth mentioning to those looking into a similar trip is the fact that Russia (at least from what we read) has a pretty lax attitude towards camping. No rules or regulations preventing it, and we met with no opposition either in this regard.

So by all means, do camp out – it's cheap (well, free actually), there are really beautiful places close to the roads, if you just bother to look them up. Just remember to gather all your trash, and try to leave the place in a nicer condition than when you arrived. (This, if something is a weakness the Russians themselves suffer from immensely – treating nature as one big trash can.)

A cyclist naturally appreciates road signs, giving confirmation that she still is on the right track. Yet here we once again encountered a Russian oddity: where you would have expected or wished for signs no were to be seen. And where you kind of knew where you were (straight road – no intersections to be seen) there was an array of signs every five kilometers.

And in addition to this, the numbers indicating distance seemed to be either completely arbitrary or just plain wrong.

A classic example of this was spotted on our last day in the Murmansk region – on one side of the road there was a sign telling us that the distance to Kirkenes was 43 kilometers, on the other side the same distance measured 32 kilometers.

Also, the policy of to which point distances were given varied greatly. This was mainly an issue when moving closer to bigger towns. Sometimes the distance was given to the edge of the town, at other times to the center. And here a ten kilometer-plus difference could be found. Not a remarkable difference, but one that truly matters to a tired cyclist.

So enjoy the signs, for what they are worth, but bring along a proper map from which you measure distances.

Kaisa is not great with kids. And this is her own assessment. So when we were carrying our gear into our apartment in Kem, we naturally left Kaisa in the yard to deal with the youngsters.

That they really had no common language didn't slow the kids down one bit. When they came to realize that Kaisa spoke no Russian, they proceeded to communicate in their admittedly very limited english.

Of which the chant "Pepsi–sexy, Pepsi–sexy" was most memorable. Cultural exchange or the downside of globalization? Pick one.

You might think that I'm obsessed, but I really cannot help but share this little gem with you.

Both innocent and perplexing – "Sam Team, look at the time!" Which might or might not be a tribute to the slogan "Check the time" popularized by Public Enemy in the hey days of rap. Only a bit more polite.

This nice round number made it's appearance while crossing no man's land in Russia. And please note that it is universally agreed upon that each kilometer cycled on the Russian side of the border can be doubled when converting distance to that ridden in any western country.

While feeling inadequately protected by her husband, Kaisa sought solace from a local mover and shaker. Seen here in a loving embrace in the café where they met. Some 70 kilometers outside of Murmansk.

Though their affair might have been short, it gave Kaisa much needed emotional fulfillment.

All in all, we cycled over 2000 kilometers, and of that amount we estimated that no more than 100 kilometers was sand road. Some of it was a choice we made to avoid a detour of 200 kilometers in the South, some road torn up for construction. But it's quite clear that for this route a mountain bike (recommended to us my many) would've been far too heavy. If we'll ever find ourselves returning to Carelia to really explore all the small villages we might want to reconsider…